Jun Li

Bio: Jun Li is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Famine. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 71 citations.

Fighting Famine in North China: State, Market and Environment Decline, 1690s‐1990s

Abstract: @fmct:Contents @toc4:List of Tables iii List of Illustrations iii Acknowledgments iii @toc2:Introduction 1 Chapter 1: \"Heaven, Earth, and Man\" in North China 000 @toc3:History of the Hai River System 000 The Hai River Basin of North China 000 Climate of the Hai River Basin 000 Historical Climate 000 Floods, Droughts, and Disasters 000 Local Records and Social Consequences 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 2. Managing the Rivers: Emperors as Engineers 000 @toc3:Kangxi and the Yongding River 000 Yongzheng, Prince Yi, and a Comprehensive Plan 000 Qianlong and Routinization 000 Jiaqing: Heroic Hydraulics 000 Daoguang: Earnest Efforts 000 Fin-de-siecle Floods 000 Local Initiatives 000 Emperors, Bureaucrats, and Ecology 000 @toc2:Chapter 3. Population, Agriculture, and Food 000 @toc3:Population and Land 000 Land and Agriculture Under Manchu Rule 000 Agriculture: Grains and Other Crops 000 Cropping Patterns and Yields 000 Diet and Standard of Living 000 Not Quite a Malthusian Tale 000 @toc2:Chapter 4. Food and Prices 000 @toc3:Long-Term Price Trends 000 Multicropping and Seasonality 000 Natural Crises and Harvests 000 The Copper Coin-Silver Exchange Rate 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 5. Provisioning Beijing 000 @toc3:Beijing and Grain Tribute 000 Grain Stipends: Distribution, Timing, and Sales 000 Pingtiao and the Beijing Market 000 Social Unrest, Pingtiao, and Soup Kitchens 000 Markets, Merchants, and Gendarmerie 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2: Chapter 6. Storing Grain: Granaries as Solution and Problem 000 @toc3:Granaries in Chinese History 000 Kangxi-Yongzheng Origins 000 Ever-Normal Granaries in the Qianlong Period 000 Ever-Normal Granaries in the Jiaqing and Daoguang Periods 000 Community and Charity Granaries 000 External Grain Supplies 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 7. Markets and Prices 000 @toc3:Market Integration Within Zhili 000 Price Integration with Other Regions 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 8. Famine Relief: The High Qing Model 000 @toc3:Famine Investigation 000 General Relief 000 Grain Versus Cash/Millet Versus Sorghum 000 Soup Kitchens 000 Pingtiao 000 Tax Remissions 000 Shelters and Famine Refugees 000 17431744: Famine Relief Model 000 1759: Disaster Without Relief 000 17611763 and Later: Relief With and Without Disaster 000 Overall Evaluation 000 @toc2:Chapter 9. Famine Relief: Nineteenth-Century Devolution 000 @toc3:The 1801 Flood 000 The 18131814 Crisis 000 Daoguang Crises and Corruption 000 Midcentury Political Crisis 000 The 18711872 Floods and the Li Hongzhang Era 000 The 18761879 North China Famine 000 The 18901895 Floods 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 10. The \"Land of Famine,\" 19001949 000 @toc3:1917 and Later Floods 000 The 19201921 Drought and International Aid 000 The 19281930 North China Drought and National Crisis 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 11. Rural Crisis and Economic Change, 1900 1949 000 @toc3:Famine and Poverty 000 Changes in the Economy 000 Local Experiences 000 Economic Trends 000 Japanese Aggression, Communist Insurgency, and Rural Poverty 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 12. Food and Famine Under Socialist Rule, 19491990s 000 @toc3:Population, Agriculture, and Grain in Hebei 000 Socialism and Subsistence in Hebei, 19491958 and Beyond 000 The Great Leap Famine, 19581961 000 Controlling Nature 000 Unleashing the Market 000 Regulating the Grain Market 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Conclusion 000 @toc4:Reign Periods of the Qing Dynasty (16441911) and Use of Dates 000 Weights and Measures 000 Glossary (Chinese Characters) 000 @toc4:Appendices 000 @toc3:Appendix 1: Prefectures and Counties in Zhili Province in Qing Period 000 Appendix 2: Data 000 Appendix 3: Quantitative Methods 000 @toc4:Abbreviations Used in Notes 000 Notes 000 Bibliography 000 Gazetteers List 000 Index 000

Weather shocks, sweet potatoes and peasant revolts in historical China

Abstract: I use data covering 267 prefectures over four centuries to investigate two questions about historical China. To what extent did weather shocks cause civil conflict? And to what extent did the historical introduction of (drought resistant) sweet potatoes mitigate these effects? I find that before the introduction of sweet potatoes, exceptional droughts increased the probability of peasant revolts by around 0.7 percentage points, which translates into a revolt probability in drought years that is more than twice the average revolt probability. After the introduction of sweet potatoes, exceptional droughts only increased the probability of peasant revolts by around 0.2 percentage points.

Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850

Abstract: Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not provides a striking new answer to the classic question of why Europe industrialised from the late eighteenth century and Asia did not. Drawing significantly from the case of India, Prasannan Parthasarathi shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the advanced regions of Europe and Asia were more alike than different, both characterized by sophisticated and growing economies. Their subsequent divergence can be attributed to different competitive and ecological pressures that in turn produced varied state policies and economic outcomes. This account breaks with conventional views, which hold that divergence occurred because Europe possessed superior markets, rationality, science or institutions. It offers instead a groundbreaking rereading of global economic development that ranges from India, Japan and China to Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire and from the textile and coal industries to the roles of science, technology and the state.

Asia’s little divergence: state capacity in China and Japan before 1850

Abstract: This paper explores the role of state capacity in the comparative economic development of China and Japan. Before 1850, both nations were ruled by stable dictators who relied on bureaucrats to govern their domains. We hypothesize that agency problems increase with the geographical size of a domain. In a large domain, the ruler’s inability to closely monitor bureaucrats creates opportunities for the bureaucrats to exploit taxpayers. To prevent overexploitation, the ruler has to keep taxes low and government small. Our dynamic model shows that while economic expansion improves the ruler’s finances in a small domain, it could lead to lower tax revenues in a large domain as it exacerbates bureaucratic expropriation. To check these implications, we assemble comparable quantitative data from primary and secondary sources. We find that the state taxed less and provided fewer local public goods per capita in China than in Japan. Furthermore, while the Tokugawa shogunate’s tax revenue grew in tandem with demographic trends, Qing China underwent fiscal contraction after 1750 despite demographic expansion. We conjecture that a greater state capacity might have prepared Japan better for the transition from stagnation to growth.

The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century

Abstract: China's extraordinary rise as an economic powerhouse in the past two decades poses a challenge to many long-held assumptions about the relationship between political institutions and economic development. Economic prosperity also was vitally important to the longevity of the Chinese Empire throughout the preindustrial era. Before the eighteenth century, China's economy shared some of the features, such as highly productive agriculture and sophisticated markets, found in the most advanced regions of Europe. But in many respects, from the central importance of irrigated rice farming to family structure, property rights, the status of merchants, the monetary system, and the imperial state's fiscal and economic policies, China's preindustrial economy diverged from the Western path of development. In this comprehensive but accessible study, Richard von Glahn examines the institutional foundations, continuities and discontinuities in China's economic development over three millennia, from the Bronze Age to the early twentieth century.